


hospital, please

by ObscureReference



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4980133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted by nursey-patrol on tumblr. "Since you asked for prompts how about “hey neighbor whom i have never met i just sliced my hand open with a fucking switchblade bc i couldn’t open a pack of pez candy and need some to drive me to the hospital” au"</p>
<p>“Chris is an adult. Legally, he is an adult and he does adult things like live in his own apartment and buy his own groceries and no one is there to tell him what he can or can’t do. He likes to think he handles it all pretty well, mostly.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	hospital, please

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I just planned on leaving this on tumblr but it actually got pretty long. Full prompt from nursey-patrol here at http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/post/130972357320/since-you-asked-for-prompts-how-about-hey . That's also where you'd see the original fill.

Chris is an adult. Legally, he is an adult and he does adult things like live in his own apartment and buy his own groceries and no one is there to tell him what he can or can't do. He likes to think he handles it all pretty well, mostly.

The downside to not having anyone there to tell him what he can or can't do is that when the small convenience store he buys milk from has a sale on pez candy for five cents a pop, Chris ends up buying as much as he can with the extra three dollars and some change in his pocket. It's a lot. Like, a _big_ 'a lot.' He kind of suspects his mother would be shaking her head if she could see him. But, he reassures himself, he is an adult who can make his own decisions, and if he decides about sixty pez candy cases is what he needs in his life, then so be it. It's the little things that make up happiness, after all.   
  
He suspects he knows why the candy was on sale for five cents a case when it takes him nearly fifteen minutes to open the first roll. The factory producing them probably used too much glue that day or something. But the fruity candy inside is still good and wrappers that are a little difficult to open are totally something an adult (he) can manage.   
  
After the first roll is opened, Chris pops about half the pieces in his mouth at once. It's an explosion of fruity goodness and he figures he might as well open another pack or two before setting aside the rest for a rainy day. He _loves_ pez candy, even if his friends back home could never figure out why. This is the best decision he's made all month.   
  
The walls in the apartment are thin, which means he can hear it sometimes when his neighbors sing in the shower or move their furniture or play slam poetry from their computer speakers at 3AM. He doesn't mind, usually, even when it's kind of loud, because mostly that stuff doesn't happen until the afternoon when everyone is awake. Except the slam poetry guy. That was always late at night. But Chris didn't even mind it that much then either because even when he woke up suddenly from the noise, the rhythm of the people's voices was usually enough to put him right back to sleep.   
  
His neighbor upstairs likes to move their furniture _a lot_ and Chris isn't exactly sure why, but sometimes it was hard to decide what felt best until you tried it out, so he figures they're probably just trying out everything. The tell-tale scrape of a heavy couch being dragged across the carpet started up again as Chris grabbed one of the smaller knives from his kitchen drawers. If he was going to open another pack, he might as well have been smart about it.   
  
In fact, he was pretty proud of himself for thinking of grabbing the knife, right up until the movers upstairs dropped something with a huge _BANG_ and suddenly Chris was slicing open his hand instead of the wrapper.   
  
He stares at it for a second, not really registering what had happened until the blood starts welling up through the cut, not thin and beady like he's seen before, but _thick_ and _gushing_ and he has made a terrible mistake here.   
  
Chris can't really tell how long the cut is because of all the blood in the way, but he feels the stinging pain of it across the heart of his palm and it certainly does not feel like something he can slap a band aid on. Crap. His hand has already started to tingle a little by the time he's wrapped one of the (clean) kitchen towels around it and he really, really, _really_ hopes he hasn't cut a tendon or anything because that would be Bad. Capital B. He really needs to go to the hospital.   
  
The thing about that is that Chris doesn't have a car and he doesn't think the bus would let him on with him dripping blood everywhere. Also, the bus takes a really long time and he kind of needs to get to a doctor ASAP. Which leaves the option of asking for help from someone he knows. Chris...does not know very many people.   
  
He only just moved up here for school a little while ago, and though he has some classmates he nods to and a few face he recognizes, he doesn't have anyone he would really call a close friend yet. Not somebody he would call up casually to take him to the hospital, anyway, even if he had their number and wouldn't ruin his phone bleeding all over it anyway.   
  
His neighbor to the right is a really southern guy named Eric is the one who sings in the shower and who bakes at all hours of the day and force feeds Chris when he thinks he hasn't eaten enough "real" food lately. He likes Eric, a lot, and would totally ask to be driven to the hospital by him, but he doesn't think Eric has a car and also he's pretty sure he's not in town this weekend. Which leaves his neighbor to the left.   
  
His neighbor to the left is the 3AM poetry guy and Chris has never seen him in his life. He's pretty sure the guy could be a ghost or a creepy murderer for all he knows. Chris isn't even sure the guy drives or not, but at the very least he could use a phone to call someone without bleeding all over it like Chris would. So he goes left. 

Thankfully, he isn't totally down on his luck today because the door opens on the third knock. The guy who opens it is a little taller than Chris and has enough stubble to kill a man. It would probably would be more intimidating any other day of the week, but as it is, Chris can only freak out about one thing at a time and right now his hand has the priority.

"Hi-I'm-sorry-but-I'm-your-neighbor-and-I-cut-my-hand-open-can-you-take-me-to-the-hospital-I'm-really-sorry-to-bother-you!"

It comes out _way_ too fast for a regular person to understand and Chris is a little worried he'll have to repeat it all again, even though he's distinctly starting to feel Not Good. The guy starts to say "What?" but then he spots Chris's dishtowel, which is more red than white at this point, and puts two and two together. 

"Out of all of that," the guy says. "I got 'hospital.' I can do that. Follow me."

Oh, thank goodness.

Chris steps aside and lets the guy lock his door, something Chris is pretty sure he forgot to do for his own apartment. Oh well. It's not like he has much to steal besides the sixty packs of pez candy which got him in this mess in the first place, so losing them wouldn't be a great loss.

His neighbor is remarkably calm for a guy who just had a stranger show up on his doorstep and ask to be taken to the hospital and for that Chris is really grateful. The walk down to the parking garage is fairly quiet, Chris focused on readjusting the hand towel while the guy is focused on...Chris isn't really sure what the guy is focused on because all of Chris's attention is on fixing his towel before they get in the guy's car. But they're both quiet and that's what stands out. They make it through the parking garage in no time.   
  
It's a nice car. A really nice car, Chris thinks, and he briefly wonders what this guy is doing living here with a car like that. But then the guy opens the side door for him and says "Hop in," and Chris does, even though he's going to definitely stain the seats and he can't really afford to pay to remove it. Not now anyway. But maybe if he saves up enough he can, since this guy is doing him a huge favor, so--  
  
"Hey, man," The guy says as he turns the engine on. "I can hear you thinking from here. Chill."  
  
"Sorry," Chris says. He fumbles as best he can with the seatbelt and it clicks after the third attempt. Nice. He still feels bad though.   
  
The guy must notice him kind of shaking in his seat, or maybe he's just that nice, because once they're rolling out of the parking garage, he asks, "What's your name?"  
  
"Chris," he responds automatically. "Chris Chow."  
  
"Cool. I'm Derek Nurse, your next door neighbor, obviously." He glances at Chris. "I'd shake your hand, but, you know."  
  
That actually makes Chris laugh a little despite the situation and how much his hand hurts and the guy— Derek— smiles in response.   
  
"So," Derek says as they turn a corner. "What has you living around here, Mr. Chow?"  
  
Derek is obviously talking to keep his mind off his hand, adding the little flare of "Mr." to the distraction since despite the stubble, he can't be that much older than Chris. But it actually kind of works, so Chris can't complain. He smiles back at Derek, even if it is a little weak. 

"I'm, uh. Going to school at Samwell up the road. The apartments are close by and cheap, so. Yeah."

Normally Chris would be so much better than this (he loves meeting new people!), but wow is his hand starting to feel funny. Huh. That's probably not a great sign.

Derek glances at him again and then back at the road.

"You should put your hand above your head to reduce blood flow," Derek says and it sounds like a good idea so Chris does just that. "And Samwell, huh? Me too. What's your major?"

"Undecided. You?"

"English," Derek says. He laughs at the look on Chris's face. "Didn't expect that, did you?"

"Not really," Chris admits. "But I guess I should have since you listen to so much poetry."

Is that a weird thing to say? The walls are thin in the apartments. This guy probably know that, so he has to know Chris can hear the slam poetry, but that still feels like a weird things to admit knowing about a stranger.

"You hear that, huh? My bad. I'll try to keep it down."

"Oh, no, it's really okay!" Now he's made it all weird and make Derek, who is so kind to drive him to the hospital, apologize for nothing. "It's not bad at all! I kind of like it!"

That makes Derek crack a small smile. "Yeah? And which ones do you like the best, you smooth talker?"

He's making fun of Chris' blubbering but not in a bad way. So Chris tells him.

They go back and forth for a few minutes, comparing Derek's analysis of his favorites slam poets to what muffled sentences Chris can hear through the walls. It's nice, actually, and before he knows it they're pulling up to the hospital in no time. It's only when Derek is parking that Chris remembers the solid throbbing in his hand.

Chris shuffles out of the car and leans down to thank Derek again for saving him when he sees Derek undoing his own seatbelt.

"Oh, no," Chris says quickly. "You don't have to come in! You've already done so much and I really appreciate—"

"Chill, man," Derek interrupts, taking his good arm and leading him inside. "How else are you gonna get back? It's not like I had much else going on today anyway."

All in all, the whole process takes about two hours. The nurse wants him to fill out a punch of paperwork, which is hard to do with one good hand, so Derek writes it all out instead. They get to know each other after that pretty quickly, since Chris has to tell him a bunch of really personal information, like his birthday and his mother's maiden name and if he's on any medications and his social security number, which he probably shouldn't be telling strangers, but he doesn't think Derek is going to steal it. Derek makes it in to a game, telling Chris his own birth date and other personal stuff every time he has to write Chris' information down. It makes the process a lot less awkward, anyway.

At one point when they flip to like the third page of the paperwork, Derek gets kind of huffy and says it's ridiculous they have to fill so much out before being seen and that makes Chris feel pretty bad until Derek says he's not annoyed at waiting for himself, he's annoyed Chris isn't getting treated faster when he's clearly hurt. That Chris makes feel embarrassed and flattered all at once and he blames his stuttering on the blood loss even though the flow has kind of stemmed a little at this point. They turn in the paperwork and talk on and off about various things until Chris gets called to the back by a nurse. At the same time Derek's phone rings and they only have time to flash each other a smile before Chris disappears around the corner.

Chris gets about eight stitches across the palm of his hand and a warning from the doctor to be more careful. He doesn't tell the doctor exactly what happened because it's actually kind of embarrassing, so he says he was cutting vegetables instead. He's probably going to have a scar after this, but all in all, it's not a terrible experience, even if his hand still hurts and he's going to have to be extra careful with it for the next few weeks.

Derek is still waiting for him when he walks out, and even though he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to just leave when he said he would stay, Chris is still pretty grateful. He whistles appreciatively at Chris's stitches when Chris shows them off.

"You know," Derek says as they climb back in the car (Derek's nice, nice car Chris is pretty sure he bled all over, even if he doesn't immediately spot any stains). "You never did tell me how you cut yourself."

Chris is pretty sure Derek hadn't asked on the way up because he was trying to keep Chris' mind off the pain. Now that he's been treated, apparently, it's free game.

Derek raises an eyebrow when Chris doesn't immediately answer. "It can't be that bad."

Chris could lie. He lied to the doctor, so lying the Derek is something he could totally do. But Derek was so kind to him the whole way here and he waited in the lobby and everything and he's just _such_ a nice guy, and Chris doesn't really want to lie to him.

"I, uh." Chris' face feels super red when he mutters the rest of the answer.

"You what?"

"I bought a bunch of pez candy and cut myself with a knife trying to open it!"

It comes out louder than Chris expected it to. He looks down.

Admitting it out loud is really, really embarrassing, actually, especially to Derek, who is kind and cool and drove Chris to the hospital when he really didn't have to. He'd just been feeling so _good_ lately about being responsible and not worrying his parents because he could take care of himself. And then he'd gone and given himself _stitches_ over something so. So _silly_. Something a kid would get stitches for and then have their mom scold them for playing with knives, even though Chris hadn't been playing at all and it was the upstairs furniture neighbor who scared him in the first place.

He's not goingto cry in Derek's car, he _isn't_ , but Chris feels like he probably could if he really wanted to. He doesn't really want to.

Something must still show on his face, however, because instead of making fun of him like Chris expects, Derek just nods.

"How much pez candy are we talking?"

That's not what Chris expects at all.

"What?"

"Like, how much pez candy?" Derek asks. " _A bunch_ as in two packs or _a bunch_ as in a lot?"

"Like, a lot-a lot."

Derek nods seriously. "Can I have some when we get back?"

"Of course!" With how nice Derek has been all day, he could have the whole bag if he wanted.

"Nice."

The conversation on the ride back is even lighter than the ride there and for a minute Chris almost wishes he lived a little farther away from the hospital until he realizes the short distance probably saved his hand. So he takes that wish back. He's still a little bummed about the short ride back though.  

When they reach the apartments, they sidestep Derek's door and walk right in to Chris'. They both ignore the mostly dried puddle of blood on the kitchen tile. The grocery bag is still sitting on the arm of the couch where he left it, which means no one broke in while he left the front door unlocked, which is great. Chris dumps about half the bag on the floor with his good hand and hands the rest to Derek, who looks at it with wide eyes. It's as even as he's going to get it without counting it all out, but he doesn't feel bad about giving Derek a little extra. Thirty rolls is more than enough for Chris.

"Holy shit," Derek says as he takes the bag. "You were not joking about the amount."

"Just be careful opening them," Chris warns. "I hear they make them really sharp these days."

It's not really that funny. It's actually barely a pun, but they both laugh anyway, and it makes Chris feel a little less embarrassed about the whole thing. Today's been honestly such an experience and he really likes Derek, but he's not sure how to approach him again without using the hospital as an excuse. He's actually a little sad when he leads them to the door.

"Hey." It's Derek who stops himself in the doorway. "How about the next time I start playing poetry through the walls, you hop on over and we compare our tastes for real? When I play it not in the middle of the night, I mean."

Chris smiles so wide his cheeks almost hurt. "I'd love to!"

So he cut his hand on opening pez candy, he still has a puddle of blood to clean up in the kitchen, he ruined a dishrag and he's pretty sure Eric is going to freak out the next time Chris sees him. _But,_ he's pretty sure he just made a new friend today, so he's going to count that as a significant win for him.

He grabs the opened pez roll off the counter, pops some more candy in his mouth and smiles. Definitely a win.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, Chowder feels really bad and childish after cutting himself, but I don't view him as a child. Accidents happen, man. We've all been there. It's hard and embarrassing. He's still an adult. And it's okay to get help when you need it. Just for the record!
> 
> My tumblr: http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/


End file.
